Information Technology Analyst Interview Preparation Guide

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Most IT workers turn to websites such as StackExchange or Github when they need help with something. Serious professionals will have their own selection of websites, online communities, social media feeds and other resources specific to their interests. The answer to this question will give you an indication of how engaged the candidate is with the broader IT world.

With on-call duties and multiple pressing deadlines, some tech workers struggle with the always-on, workaholic culture of this field. While you want dedicated team members, you should also seek employees who know how to relax and take care of themselves. Burnout is a very real problem in IT, and top performers have good strategies in place to prevent that. As a follow up to their answer, you could talk about how your company supports a healthy work-life balance — something that can be very tempting for candidates with multiple offers.

The answer to this question will test your experience, skills, and individuality. “I am technically sound and can make a strong relationship with the customer. With this unique combination, I can use my knowledge and information to build a user-friendly environment”.

Selecting the life cycle model for a project is based on its type, scope, and limitations. It is solely dependent on the culture of the organization, their terms, and conditions, policies, a process of developing the system etc.

Tech professionals work hard to keep their knowledge base current, and they do that by reading blogs and forums, taking online courses, joining hackathons and plugging away at personal IT projects. This interview question can help you gauge the candidate’s enthusiasm for the profession, as well as open up a conversation about professional development.

In addition to learning whether prospective employees like the hardware, operating system and software your company uses, this question helps you evaluate enthusiasm and knowledge. Do candidates become animated when discussing the advantages and disadvantages of certain tools? Do they admire solid engineering, sleek design, intuitive user experience or another aspect of good technology?

A Business Analyst plays a vital role in a project for an organization.

☛ i) The main role of a Business Analyst is to find out the needs of an organization, finding out their problems, even predicting the future issues to an extent and suggesting the suitable solutions for the same and drive through the organization’s achievements.

☛ ii) Business Analyst role varies from organization to organization, project to project and even from domain to domain.

☛ iii) BA in a project can play the role of a Business Planner, System Analyst, Data Analyst, Organization Analyst, Application Designer, Subject Area Expert, Technical Architect etc.

☛ iv) Core skills of a BA are a good grip on system engineering concepts, leadership qualities, technical knowledge, writing and verbal communications.

☛ v) BA’s job may vary as per the employer’s requirement like some are limited to IT projects, even few of them extend their responsibilities to areas such as finance, marketing, accounting etc.

The features and standards of a good requirement can be pointed out using a rule called SMART rule.

Specific – The description of a requirement should be perfect and specific enough to understand it.

Measurable – There are various parameters through which the requirement’s success can be measured.

Attainable – Resources should be able to achieve success with the requirement.

Relevant – States that what results are realistically achieved.

Timely – Requirements of a project should be revealed in time.

Requirements are considered as complete when they satisfy the below criteria

i) Requirements should be aligned with the objectives of a business. It means that the views of business stakeholders should align with the needs to be built for the project.

ii) All the possible views and ideas of key stakeholders are to be extracted.

iii) A quality of the requirements should meet/satisfy the organization’s set of criteria’s through which the quality of the requirements is tested.

iv) One can say that the requirements are complete when they could be done with in the possible available resources.

v) All the stakeholders of the project should be in consent with the gathered requirements.

A question like this can reveal how the interviewee feels about the position and what they think they would bring to it. Some people may focus on IT certifications and technical abilities, while others may talk more about problem solving, attention to detail, communication and other general job skills. Look for candidates who give a nice balance of both.

Everyone deals with professional setbacks at some point in their career. What you want to know is how people handled — and what they learned from — those situations. The best employees are resilient, using setbacks as a springboard toward positive changes. So listen to not only the problem they mention, but also what they did after the disappointment.

This is a logical question asked in an interview. As a BA, first I’ll get signed a document by the user which states that after a point of time no changes to the requirements are accepted.

In few cases, if the changes to the requirements are accepted then as a BA,

☛ i) Firstly I’ll note down the changes made to the requirements and will prioritize them.

☛ ii) Will also go through those changes and find out the impact of them on the project.

☛ iii) Will calculate the cost, timeline, and resources required to cover the impact of change requirements in the project.

☛ iv) And will make sure that whether those changes affect or create gaps to functional design documents, testing or coding.

‘Risk’ is nothing but a problem or something that can be predicted earlier so that some improvement plans are used to handle them. Whereas an ‘Issue’ means the risk that had happened or occurred.

The role of a BA is not to solve the issue instead should suggest some plans to control the loss/damage caused. And this should be marked as a precautionary measure for other projects.

Example: On some roads, there are few caution boards stating that “Road under repair, take diversion”. This is called as Risk.

If we travel through the same route which is under repair, then there caused some damage to the vehicle. This is called as an issue.

Dealing with difficult stakeholders is a major task for a BA. There are many ways to handle such situations, few important points to be noted among them are listed below.

☛ i) Identify that difficult stakeholder among the group of stakeholders, listen and concentrate on their point of view with patience. Be polite to them and do not close off the conversation immediately with such people.

☛ ii) Generally, a stakeholder will be difficult because they are not comfortable with few things in the project. So listen to them and answer such difficult stakeholders in a diplomatic way.

☛ iii) Find out a way to meet them personally and have a one on one discussion. By this, you can show your commitment towards them.

☛ iv) Try to find out and resolve their motivations like are they worried about the budget of the project or Curious about the project whether it is turning exactly as per their vision etc.

☛ v) Continuously engage such difficult stakeholders and make them understand that their contribution is much value for the project.

☛ How would you manage frequent changes in user requirements?
☛ How do you persuade a doubtful manager to get on board with your suggestions?
☛ How would you reconcile different opinions on the deployment date of a new program?
☛ What SAP software applications have you used?
☛ What is a DHCP server?
☛ Walk me through the process of analyzing an existing system.
☛ How do you explain user scenarios in a technical document?
☛ What’s the difference between technical and functional requirements? How do you gather each?
☛ How do you perform a software audit on a PC or Mac?
☛ Do you have experience designing a new system with limited resources? If so, how did you do it?
☛ Describe a time when you worked with a team to tackle a tough project. What was your role?
☛ Describe a time when you had to deliver a presentation. How did you explain technical details to a non-technical audience?
☛ Have you ever implemented a cost-reducing system? What was it and how did you come up with the suggestion?

The answer to this interview question depends on the role. A developer, for example, may hope to have developed a small project during that time, while a tech manager may want to have analyzed internal processes. A candidate’s response will give you insights into their overall understanding of the position. If their goals and ambitions don’t match the job description, this may not be the right position for them.

IT plays a crucial role in almost every company, so the ability to communicate with non-technical people is a must. You can assess candidates’ communication skills with this interview question. Do they avoid obscure acronyms and jargon? How well can they break down a complicated process? Try asking a few “dumb” follow-up questions to get sense of how they’d interact with non-tech colleagues.

You want to hire an IT professional who devotes their personal time to side projects. Why? These are people who are driven and curious, which, in turn, keeps their skill set fresh. Ask how they stay motivated, what interests them about the project and what their ultimate goal is. If they can demo a website or app they’ve built, all the better.

Individuals who truly want the job will have done their research and be able to talk about your company’s values, products and services, and approach to technology. If they can’t articulate at least a few reasons your company would be a good match for their skills and ambitions, then they haven’t done their due diligence to properly prepared for the interview — an interview red flag for hiring managers.

Fish model consumes more time in dealing with requirements when compared to V model. Even Fish model is a bit expensive than V model. Generally, a Fish model is preferred when there are no uncertainties in the requirements.

INVEST means Independent, Negotiable, Valuable, Estimable, Sized Appropriately, Testable. With this INVEST process, the project managers and technical teams are able to deliver the good quality of the product and can provide quality service.

Many candidates seek workplace benefits such as telecommuting, flextime and a BYOD (bring your own device) policy. Asking this interview question serves as a reminder to candidates that the company offers such perks. It’s also a good way of identifying those who might not be a good fit — that is, if your company has a flexible work environment.

Most IT teams have adopted some form of Agile — currently the favored SDLC methodology — which means lots of quick meetings and a steady stream of feedback from fellow team members. A candidate’s answer to this question can tell you not only their level of understanding of this popular environment, but also their attitudes toward collaboration and communication.

i) A Business Analyst is not intended to organize the project team meetings.

ii) A Business Analyst should not bother regarding the risks and issues tracker of a project.

iii) A Business Analyst should not perform activities like testing (executing the TC’s), coding or programming.

The process of measuring the quality of policies, programs, products, rules and other measures of an organization against the standard measures or against the other companies is termed as Benchmarking. This is used to the measure the performance of a company to compete in the industry.

The main purpose of benchmarking is to find out the areas of improvement in a company and to analyze how the neighbor companies are achieving their goals.